Christmas holidays can be fraught with tension in some workplaces; with many employees wanting to take the same period of time away from work overChristmas, it isn’t always possible to accommodate everyone’s wishes which canresult in frustrations. How can you avoid this and make your holiday request systemfair?
What is the issue with Christmas holidays?
Come December, lots of employees will want to take can result, whether it is for religious or childcare reasons or because they want system fair Christmas festivities. The issue many businesses face is the prospect of a complete shutdown of operations or reduced production. We live in a world where many businesses operate all year round, even Christmas day.
Although there has been a backlash in recent times against people having to work the holiday period, especially in retail, there are still some services and businesses that simply don’t have a choice on their opening hours. Hospitals, care homes and emergency services, for example.
So to make things fair for your employees, how do you deal with the barrage of holiday requests from employees and potential frustrations?
What does the law say about Christmas holidays?
Let’s start with basics; how much and what annual leave are employees entitled to?
Every full-time employee is entitled to a minimum holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday pro-rata (that’s 28 days for someone who works five days a week). This time can include public holidays, such as Christmas, and the Bank Holidays we get in the UK, but here is the surprising part; it doesn’t actually have to.
Whether your employees have Christmas bank holidays off is contractual and based on your business needs. Therefore, nobody has the right to take their annual leave at Christmas. It is a decision that needs to be made in your business and here lies the problem.
If you are a business that operates over the Christmas period then ideally you want to keep up production or keep your service open – this clashes with lots of staff wanting to take annual leave. In the interests of employee wellness, what can you do to make it fair?
Solutions for Christmas holiday annual leave
Here are some ideas on how you can make Christmas a little bit fairer for everyone.
First come, first served – a lot of companies operate a ‘first come, first served policy’. However this only works if it is consistent across your business. Ensure that employees use the ‘official’ way to request a holiday, for example, by completing a holiday request form and not just mentioning it to their manager. The same system needs to be enforced across your business. This policy can work for some businesses but some people find this system unfair due to the same people putting their holiday requests in very early.
Group collaboration – if you have less than 15 employees, it isn’t difficult to sit down together and hash it out who wants what off over the holiday period. An open, fair discussion is the ideal solution for smaller businesses. Ask each person what days they would like to take off and ensure that each person has at least one of the days off of their choosing.
Shut down – can your business survive if you close down for the week in between Christmas day and the New Year? If you don’t have many customers during this period will it massively affect your business to close for the week? This week off can be incorporated into employees holiday entitlement or given as extra. Even if some of your employees don’t celebrate Christmas, time away from work to relax and recuperate will do wonders for employee health – with everyone feeling fresh and rested ready for the year ahead.
Working from home – can you make arrangements for employees to work from home over the Christmas period? Whilst technically, they’re still working having the freedom to more flexible work hours and place of work can make a big difference for workers. For example, parents who may want to spend daytime with their children and then work in the evening, once the kids have gone to bed. Even just not having to travel into the office every day would be a nice break for employees.
Draw names – one common way to decide who gets what days off over Christmas is by drawing names. Employees write down which days they want and their name on a slip of paper and then a manager draws names to see who ‘wins’ their days off. Yes, people may still end up disappointed but at least employees will all be in agreement that the decision was fair and no favouritism was shown to another person or to parents.
Expert Health and Wellbeing Advice
It is possible to make Christmas fair and enjoyable for everyone, it just takes a little bit of planning and though.
Here at Wellspace we are experts at corporate health and wellbeing. If you would like more advice or to speak about our well-rounded corporate wellbeing programme give us a call on 0808 178 0748 or email info@yourwellspace.co.uk and one of our team would be happy to speak to you.
